Issue Page

Neighborhood schools and student needs

Fund schools, keep Norfolk Highlands Primary open, expand early-childhood education responsibly, and make major decisions from evidence instead of a single preset option.

Where this shows up

Indian River: Norfolk Highlands Primary, Georgetown, Sparrow Road, Thurgood Marshall, Portlock, Truitt, and Rena B. Wright.
Deep Creek and Grassfield: elementary capacity, portables, growth, and unstable attendance zones.
Western Branch, Greenbrier, and South Norfolk: staff funding, facility needs, and historic school identity.
Great Bridge: Career Center, fieldhouses, school traffic, and capital priorities.
Southern Chesapeake: portables, travel distance, and permanent capacity.

What the city and school division should do

Keep Norfolk Highlands Primary open as a neighborhood school.
Expand early-childhood education without eliminating a functioning walkable school.
Compare distributed, co-located, hub-and-spoke, renovation, and new-construction options in public.
Publish capacity, portables, facility condition, transportation, staffing, rezoning, and educational impacts by planning area.
Fund educator and school-support pay before discretionary prestige projects.
Reduce routine Chromebook dependence and restore more paper, books, handwriting, mental math, and direct instruction while keeping strong computing courses.